Why 45 thousand, Sydney has a 45 thousand white elephant that hardly gets used now.
Parramatta is where the new Airport should be built, out that way west, so anyone with half a peanut would build a huge 60 thousand stadium and project growth as “if you build it they will come”, much like Brisbane has with Suncorp which let me remind you is only 10 odd years old, and already has the reputation of Australia’s premier sporting stadium.
Apart from the G, which can only host 1 code, oh, plus the cricket.
Parra is the new Black, why give them a donkey 30, 40 thopusand stadium. Spelling mistake intended.

I have been following Oikee on these blogs, i think he is a outstanding and brilliant individual who is lightyears ahead of other bloggers and a really nice guy and handsome person to boot.
I also think he forgot his old password so now is stuck with the code name Wotsit.
Cheers Mlas. Yes spelling mistake intended.

Sydney with all it’s huffing and puffing, ‘uming and arhing’ is really a backwood city to be honest. Melbourne and even Brisbane have made this city look very ordinary in world standards. They cant even build big skyscrapers because of limits. Brisbane has bigger plans and projects underway, and Melbourne are building skyscrappers reaching for the heavens.
As in stadiums, Melbourne by a long way has Sydney covered, even Brisbane can take alot of games off Sydney because they really dont have a worldclass stadium. Apart from the ANZ olympic stadium that rides off the back of this 2000 event.
Outside big events, nobody really wants to be seen there, as it is cold, along way from home, and awful in bad wheather.

Sydney has not got a stadium where fans want to turn up every week, unlike the MCG in Melbourne, or Suncorp in Brisbane.
Sydney now has a chance to build a half decent stadium, but i can see this city getting this wrong, totally wrong.
To put it bluntly, if they get this wrong, they wont ever get another chance.
Melbourne and Brisbane will be the “place to be”.

If they build another 30 or 40 thousand stadium, they might as well not bother.
Suncorp is 53 thousand, and too small now.
Sydney needs a 60 to 70 thousand rectangle stadium. Wales, Ireland, even Scotland not to mention England, have better stadiums than Australia.

Parramatta area is a growth area. They are a Brisbane type area. they should be aiming to build a 60 thousand stadium.
No good even trying to grow crowds without proper stadiums.
Most of the bigger international games will all be played at Parramatta if they built a half decent 60 or even 70 thousand stadium, it is a no brainer. America has 30 to 50 rectangle stadiums all over 50 to 60 thousand, some are 100 thousand, surely we could find one to suit us here in Australia.

Most of the teams you mention should be there abouts come end of season. Cantebury Bulldogs Canberra Raiders and the Smiley Northern Queensland Cowboys. If the Cowboys make the finals they wont get beaten. You have to lose one to win one, and they learnt a good lesson last year.
They wont make the same mistake twice.

I think we might have to wait and see the end result. Sponsers are making plenty of noise and the clubs could argue that they have lost alot of sponsership monies due to these allegations and/if most pan out to be little more than white-noise.
Looking at the cheaters and game-fixers so far, we have Tandy, who was caught years ago. The Roosters game that we already knew about, a bloke who twittered that he took some nasty pills, a few days later said it was all a joke, and a under 20’s kid found on roids while pumping iron.

If this is the soul number of players who come out of this report, then yes. It is then time to ‘right wrong’ as Erin would say.

In a time where sponsers are part of the growth to our success, yes we should be concerned, and the last time i looked, the betting agencies were the guys who had the match-fixers on camera. So they seem to be doing their jobs. Plus they brought in the racing minister to help find any more discrepencies, in which none were found at the time apart from rumblings about the Roosters game.
That is hardly a code being run by drug dealers and/or crime-lord match-fixers.

Dave Smith the CEO has looked at the results, he seems a little concerned, maybe he has had the wool pulled over his eyes, maybe he is a government plant, a weed even.
We can speculate all we like, but until we have the report in 6 months time, we might have to be satisfied with supporting 100% behind the code, innocent until proved guilty i think is the defence of wrongdoers.
Surely we must have learnt something from the Brett Stewart incident, or are we going back to hang-em-high and ask questions later. I will make comment when i have read and understand all the facts, not media trickle.

In the meantime we have 4 games on Saturday, the Storm club challenge, Broncos/Warriors Tigers/Roosters and Charity sheild,bunnies/dragons, all on fox Saturday. That is more than the normal season games, maybe we should only play trails, we seem to get more games to watch. I think Nine is also showing the world club game early Saturday morning.
I can almost smell the goodness of cut turf and the canteen lady heating pies. .
It will be a goodyear. No, a great year, i can smell it.

How did his last few games go in Japan rugby, has anybody heard. I know he was injured for a few games.
I myself are looking forward to him testing himself in the NRL again. It is a totally different game to what he was used to when he was here 5 years ago. Changed totally.
He should get a bit more freedom in the NRL, unlike rugby where he had limited time with the ball to show his class. He did make some nice waves in rugby union, but to be a superstar in Australia, either AFL down south or the NRL is the best way of going about creating a following or fan-club.
I hope he does well in league and stays longer than 1 or 2 years. He could go on to make a name for himself and also play in another league world cup here in Australia and NZ in 2017.
He looks really fit in that boxing photo, and the time away from rugby league might have helped him add to the length of his career.
All depends on weather or not he wishes to keep boxing. I think he can go further than Mundine ever did if he put his mind to boxing.
He looked pretty good against his last opponent who could take some good hits.
Whatever happens, the publicity and hype of his return to rugby league is good for our code, plus it takes the spotlight off Falou who the rugby boys are trying to pump up into someone he is not.
Lets not forget he was a failure at AFL. He failed misrebly. A total wipeout Israel Falou was at AFL.

I read the Broncos lost another winger on the weekend. Copley joins Yow-Yeah on the sidelines and are looking lightweights in the backline.
You seem very acurate in your post. This might be the best contest this year, the battle for the wooden spoon. I will have to watch those 3 teams, Broncos, Parramatta and the Warriors. They all seem to have missed the start, luckily this is a Grand National, not a Golden Slipper event.
Nobody will beat the Cowboys if they make the finals.

I honestly feel it will be the Cowboys year this year. Bad luck to whoever comes against them in the final.

Being a Cowboys fan, i can not really see the Cowboys jeopardising the club by taking drugs to improve performence.
Wheather or not players who have come to the club during the off-season from other clubs is a case for the ACC.
It would be disappointing if we lost a finals series against a club that is implicated or let players go to other clubs or leagues in this investigation.
Time will tell.

I can see the NRL improving the profile of the game worldwide because of Sonny Bill. The guy is known throughout the world by the help of Union’s worldwide presence. Between Sonny Bill, the State of the Origin and this years worldcup in the UK, this time next year, they might have to give Sonny Bill a little extra in his Xmas Hamper.
The World Club Challenge game is close to sold-out as well.
I was watching a super league game last weekend, Wigan verse the Warrington, if this is the standard of superleague, then rugby league is going well in 2 major places in the world.
I am looking forward to the season start Sir Wizard, and the Bronco’s Warriors trail game is live next weekend after the World Club Challenge on the Saturday morning.
Will be a great season i think. Maybe best ever if NSW win state of the origin.

I would like to see a clinic in Sydney or even Brisbane be more pro-active and test for these drugs that we dont seem able to test.
To be honest, if we could find the culprits, would they not already be named and shamed.
World class practise in drug testing would be a good idea.
At the moment we seem to have clubs being cleared of any wrong doing.
150 have been named as being looked at, so if you take away the 3 clubs who think they are clean, that would leave 3 clubs.
So even if every player was taking drugs, let us say 20 players in each leftover team. That is 60 players being looked at.

150 is what the CC and Asada has said they are looking at, minus 60 if every single NRL player is involved, that is 20 players in 3 teams, so that leaves 90 players not in the NRL being looked at, something is not adding up to me.

Very pleasing to see Daniel Anderson as new chief of refs. How did this happen. I have alot more confedence in rugby league now as a code.
Nice to see the Captain’s challenge also getting a better showing this year. Trailing for 1 or 2 games is never enough. You need to give these new rules time to sink their teeth into the system.

This sounds great on paper. The question i would be asking is when, between which teams or states and where.
The league Origin has been built up over time and even today has their detractors.
If you look at our codes winter season’s, you know that they start in March and end in September. So Oct, Nov, Dec *xmas* n.y*, Jan and Feb, let us say 5 months off-season.
The players need at least a month for holidays, and Xmas n.y newyear is off limits, so their goes about 6 weeks.
If you are going to start training to get fit, that is about 1 to 2 months,. Now your looking at 1 to 2 months for a state comp or as you have now NAB cup.
The NAB cup has to go, and what you want to replace this with is a State comp.
“””Origin wont work”””, it is long gone now because AFL is a national comp.
The only other game will be a one off All-stars game, again this will be only 1 game because of player and club welfare.

I have looked at this over time and can not see any avenue for a serious fixture, apart from exhibition games. Even in rugby league the calender is full. Player welfare is at stretching point now.
To hold a serious comp before the season would require players at peak fitness well before the season starts. I think any idea of holding games or comp’s outside a season is now fraught with risk.
The only reason rugby league gets away with it is because it has turned into a huge cashcow, and in the middle of a season, apart from that it would be scrapped.
If they tried to do something similar today, fans would probably riot and want it scrapped if injuires accured.
What we have now is pretty well the calender for all codes. Soccer is on the rise, Rugby is trying to squeeze more into a packed NRL and AFL calender, and off season is at a point where not much else has room to grow any more.

I would even go as far to say the NRL all-stars is on unsettled ground. Competition against a NZ nines comp has now threatened this game.
And that is the nature of pre-season comps. Trial games are also necessary for the AFL and nrl for that matter. Players dont magically be 100% without a few trails.

G’day. It seems to me that this is a problem across all codes – especially in light of the recent actions of a well known All Blacks player. There have been so many incidents and “falls from grace” across the board that, despite the attempts of some codes to keep these problems under wraps, maybe it is better to bring all events to the public’s attention.

At a time when we talk about players being role models for our children, I for one want to know exactly what is happening within the Codes and not simply be fed by the media those chosen incidents which do not affect or threaten their own careers.